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Understanding Community: Microwear Analysis of Blades at the Mound House Site

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Understanding Community: Microwear Analysis of Blades at the Mound House Site Illinois State University ISU ReD: Research and eData Theses and Dissertations 4-16-2019 Understanding Community: Microwear Analysis of Blades at the Mound House Site Silas Levi Chapman Illinois State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Chapman, Silas Levi, "Understanding Community: Microwear Analysis of Blades at the Mound House Site" (2019). Theses and Dissertations. 1118. https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd/1118 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ISU ReD: Research and eData. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ISU ReD: Research and eData. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UNDERSTANDING COMMUNITY: MICROWEAR ANALYSIS OF BLADES AT THE MOUND HOUSE SITE SILAS LEVI CHAPMAN 89 Pages Understanding Middle Woodland period sites has been of considerable interest for North American archaeologists since early on in the discipline. Various Middle Woodland period (50 BCE-400CE) cultures participated in shared ideas and behaviors, such as constructing mounds and earthworks and importing exotic materials to make objects for ceremony and for interring with the dead. These shared behaviors and ideas are termed by archaeologists as “Hopewell”. The Mound House site is a floodplain mound group thought to have served as a “ritual aggregation center”, a place for the dispersed Middle Woodland communities to congregate at certain times of year to reinforce their shared identity. Mound House is located in the Lower Illinois River valley within the floodplain of the Illinois River, where there is a concentration of Middle Woodland sites and activity. Use-wear analysis is a tool that archaeologists can use to identify the materials stone tools were used to cut, scrape, drill, etc. The application of this technique to blades, a tool style associated with Hopewell, at Mound House can reveal what people were doing at Mound House. This thesis applies this technique to the Mound House site to reveal evidence for communal activities such as feasting, while craft production and daily activities play a lesser role at the site. This supports preexisting ideas about Mound House as a center for Middle Woodland people to gather to form a symbolic community. KEYWORDS: Archaeology, North American Archaeology, Middle Woodland, Hopewell, Use- Wear Analysis UNDERSTANDING COMMUNITY: MICROWEAR ANALYSIS OF BLADES AT THE MOUND HOUSE SITE SILAS LEVI CHAPMAN A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE Department of Sociology and Anthropology ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY 2019 Copyright 2019 Silas Levi Chapman UNDERSTANDING COMMUNITY: MICROWEAR ANALYSIS OF BLADES AT THE MOUND HOUSE SITE SILAS LEVI CHAPMAN COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Gregory L. Miller, Chair Jason L. King Abigail C. Stone ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. G. Logan Miller for his assistance in instructing me on use- wear analysis and identifying wear, as well as his guidance as my thesis advisor and serving as my thesis committee chair. I would like to thank the Center for American Archaeology for loaning me the materials that were the basis for this thesis, and Dr. Jason King who acted as my contact with the CAA. I would also like to thank Dr. Jason King and Dr. Abigail Stone for serving on my thesis committee and providing feedback and guidance. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends who supported me through the time of writing this thesis. S.L.C. i CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i TABLES iii FIGURES iv INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I: THE MIDDLE WOODLAND PERIOD AND HOPEWELL 5 CHAPTER II: THE MOUND HOUSE SITE, 11-GE-7 22 CHAPTER III: PREVIOUS ANALYSES OF HOPEWELL BLADES 27 CHAPTER IV: A BRIEF HISTORY OF USE-WEAR ANALYSIS AND METHODOLOGY 37 CHAPTER V: RESULTS 44 CHAPTER VI: DISCUSIION 60 CONCLUSION 78 REFERENCES CITED 80 ii TABLES Table Page 1. Used Mound House Blades by Context 46 2. Total Site Use Wear by Material Worked 46 3. Blades with Motions of Use Identified 47 4. Mound Area Use Wear 50 5. Habitation Area Use Wear 50 6. Degree of Completeness for Blades, Unused vs Used 59 iii FIGURES Figure Page 1. Regional Midwest map showing the location of Mound House and other Midde Woodland sites discussed in this study 5 2. Map of the Mound House Site with Units and Labels of Mounds and Areas 26 3. A Selection of Blades and Blade Fragments from Mound House 43 4. Photos of use-wear on blades 45 5. Blades with retouch or modification 49 6. Bone and Antler Use-Wear Distribution at Mound House 51 7. Dry Hide Use-Wear Distribution at Mound House 52 8. Fresh Hide Use-Wear Distribution at Mound House 53 9. Dry Hide and Fresh Hide Combined Use-Wear Distribution at Mound House 54 10. Meat Use-Wear Distribution at Mound House 55 11. Soft Plant Use-Wear Distribution at Mound House 56 12. Stone Use-Wear Distribution at Mound House 57 13. Wood Use-Wear Distribution at Mound House 58 14. A comparison of use-wear distributions in the different Mound House contexts 62 15. A comparison of the Mound House site and the Murphy site use-wear assemblages 66 16. A comparison of the Mound House site and the Smith site use-wear assemblages 67 17. A comparison of the Mound House site and the Paint Creek Lake Site #5 use-wear assemblages 69 18. A comparison of the Mound House site and the Ft. Ancient site assemblage the North Fort Gateways 71 iv 19. A comparison of the Mound House site and the Ft. Ancient site assemblage in Lots 17 and 18 72 20. A comparison of the Mound House site and the Ft. Ancient site assemblage in the Twin Mounds area 72 21. A comparison of the Mound House site and the Ft. Ancient site assemblage in the Interior Household Cluster 73 22. A comparison of the Mound House site and the Ft. Ancient site assemblage in the Moorehead Circle 73 23. A comparison of the Mound House site and the Ft. Ancient site assemblage in Waterline Trench Six 74 24. A comparison of the Mound House site and the Ft. Ancient site assemblage in the Middle Fort area 74 v INTRODUCTION This thesis is a presentation of a microwear analysis of lithic blades from the Mound House site. This mound group is located in the floodplain of the Lower Illinois River Valley and served as gathering space for Middle Woodland communities in the region. We as archaeologists know a lot about the mound construction sequence at the site and that ritual activity took place here. While ceremonies and community formation seem to have been important at Mound House, little is known about additional activities, ceremonial or otherwise, that took place there, other than mound construction. Mound House, like other Middle Woodland floodplain mound groups in this region of Illinois, has been conceptualized as a regional ceremonial centers, where a symbolic community gathered for ceremonial and cooperative activities (King, Buikstra, and Charles 2011; Ruby et al. 2005). The Mound House site in particular has been noted for the unique ritual complexity at the site, evidenced by a pre-mound ritual screen underneath mound 1. Blade use during the Middle Woodland period (50 BCE-400 CE) is strongly associated with the rise and spread of Hopewell. Hopewell refers to collections of material culture made from exotic materials that were sourced and exchanged over the North American Midcontinent in connection with specific styles of building mounds and other earthworks. Most Hopewell artifacts were not utilitarian objects and were interred with the dead in burial mounds as grave goods. Blades start appearing with early Hopewell sites and spread where other Hopewell artifacts and ideas had been. When Hopewell disappeared at the end of the Middle Woodland period, so did the use of blades (Fortier 2000; Miller 2018a), suggesting that the invention and use of blades during the Middle Woodland period was a Hopewell practice. Another reason Hopewell blades have captured the attention of archaeologists is that this technology existed alongside flake and bifacial stone tool technology, which would seemingly make it a redundant 1 tool form. This has led to speculation of blades being a technological adaptation, perhaps as a tool to fit a specialized niche, such as in the production of Hopewell artifacts (Grubb 1981; Reid 1976). Others have speculated that Hopewell blades were a tool type that largely function to symbolize Hopewell identity (Morrow 1987). The application of use-wear to Hopewell blades allows archaeologists to truly identify their function. Microwear analysis allows for each individual tool to be identified, and in turn, whole assemblages. Since the early 1990’s there have been multiple applications of microwear analysis to Hopewell blades (Kay and Mainfort 2014; Lemons and Church 1998; Miller 2015; 2018; Odell 1994; Yerkes 1994). Considering how long and intensely North American archaeology has been interested in Hopewell and the Middle Woodland, it is surprising that there are not more functional analyses of blades at Illinois sites. Most of these studies have been with Ohio Middle Woodland sites (Lemons and Church 1998; Miller 2015; 2018; Yerkes 1994), one study has examined those from Illinois sites (Odell 1994), and others on Hopewell blades in the Southeast (Kay and Mainfort 2014; Kimball 1992). Odell (1994) used low-power microscopy in his study, which can tell the observer less about the material the tool contact than high-power microscopy techniques. This makes this thesis the only application of high-power microscopy techniques to Illinois Hopewell Blades. Previous studies of Hopewell blade use-wear have shown that blades were not specialized tools but were used to perform a wide variety of tasks including butchering, hide processing, woodworking, working bone and antler, carving stone and shell, and much more.
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